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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Great Lives

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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BBC Radio 4 LW

Matthew Parris

Gabriel Gbadamosi

Stephen Chan

Melvin Rickarby

Great Lives: Gabriel Gbadamosi on Fela Kuti

Gabriel Gbadamosi on Fela Kuti

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Gabriel Gbadamosi on Fela Kuti

Gabriel Gbadamosi chooses as his Great Life the inventor of Afrobeat, musician Fela Kuti

Gabriel Gbadamosi nominates Nigerian political and musical maverick Fela Kuti. With Mathhew Parris and Stephen Chan. From 2013.

Poet, playwright, and critic Gabriel Gbadamosi chooses as his Great Life the political maverick and inventor of Afrobeat, musician Fela Kuti, and tells Matthew Parris why his work deserves to be better known. 

Whether withstanding ferocious beatings from the Nigerian police, insulting his audiences, or demanding a million pounds in cash upfront from Motown records, his strength and stubbornness were legendary, and his gift for controversy unmatched.

Fela had more than 25 wives, some of whom he beat, and was President of his own self proclaimed Republic. He smoked dope and was the scourge of the rulers of a corrupt Nigerian state and was acclaimed as having the best live band on earth.

Gabriel Gbadamosi is joined by Stephen Chan, professor of International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, to discuss the musical and political life of this outspoken force of nature.

Presenter: Matthew Parris 

Producer: Melvin Rickarby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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